Need an idea for your secret pal's next gift? Here you go!

What do teachers spend their weekends, evenings, and vacations doing? Grading papers.

The most useful gift you can give a teacher is TIME, because we never seem to have enough of it. But how can you help a teacher grade all those papers without letting the cat out of the bag?

Give your secret teacher pal rubber stamps. Let’s face it, sometimes those papers pile up, and you can’t find enough time to grade all of them. When that end-of-your-rope moment occurs, what you need is a quick easy way to say, “CHECK!”–I graded it.

Here’s a set of Good Job! stamps, selling for $4.00 for four wood-based stamps, on Amazon.

Once you’ve bought the rubber stamps, you’ll also want to buy your teacher pal some ink. Here’s a set with three different colors for $5.85.

There are lots of ways to divvy out your stamps. Give them, one at a time, in a gift bag with other things like candy and pencils. Or wrap each one in a little box with a ribbon and give the stamps as individual gifts. If you buy a set of 10 stamps, you could divide them up and give your secret pal one stamp per gift day, spreading out a $20.00 set so that they become ten, $2.00 gifts.

One last thing: although it’s a little more spendy, here’s a website that offers educational self-inking stamps, youth-group-themed stamps, business stamps, and more. You can have a self-inking stamp customized with your teacher friend’s name on it (great for marking his/her classroom library’s books and other stuff) for $13.95. Imagine giving your secret pal teacher friend a self-inking stamp that says, “This book belongs to Mr. Garcia”. How cool is that? 🙂

It’s an election year, so we’ve got to take advantage of President’s Day this year! Need some President’s Day gift ideas for your Secret Pal/Office Friend/Amigo Secreto? There are some great gift ideas on Cafe Press! But get your order in early!

Give your secret pal a bumper sticker for the presidential candidate of their choice.

T-rex mask is $7.50, which is very reasonable, but some masks are even less expensive!

If your secret pal or secret Santa buddy happens to teach science, boy are you in luck! While browsing Etsy, I ran across Tetra Variations, a shop where you can purchase a DIY origami-like mask that comes in a number of different dinosaur designs. When I saw this product, I immediately thought of the science teachers I work with. I’m sure you’re doing the same: thinking of the person you know who would walk around school all day wearing one of these dinosaudorable masks!

Before posting this article, I contacted Matthew, who runs Tetra Variations, and found he was a school teacher, like you and me, who has founded a fun side-business, creating these wonderful masks. He maintains a Tumblr account in addition to his website and Etsy store. He was super friendly and professional to chat with.

So why not jump on the Jurassic bandwagon? Grab up your T-Rex or Pterodactyl mask and flaunt it proudly. We can’t have just the science teacher wearing these! How silly would that be? Heck, buy one for every member of your staff to wear on International Archaeology Day (October 17). Can you just imagine how much fun the kids and the teachers at your school will have, with everyone wearing a dinosaur mask for an event like that?

I always get lots of followers on my Secret Pal Teachers website during the holidays, but once Secret Santa season is over, my stats go down quite a bit. So as has been my habit in the past, I’ll only be posting once a month after the holiday season comes to a close. That way my faithful Secret Santa followers aren’t inundated with unwanted e-mails from their subscriptions to my blog.

No need to unsubscribe. I’ll keep posts fairly limited until next Christmas. Then, when your office or school starts another Secret Santa program next year, you’ll still be able to easily find this blog and all its great seasonal ideas.

Meanwhile, if you like to sew, my ChellyWood.com website offers great sewing tutorials. If you teach English or love to write, my English Emporium website offers free writerly tips and English-teacher worksheets. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to check out those venues. You can google my name, Chelly Wood, to find all the great stuff I offer for free online.

For those of you who do year-long “Secret Pal” gift exchanges at your office, this website will continue to offer you great gift ideas once a month. And of course, you can always search my archives for gifts, cards, poems, and more.

Teacher Appreciation Day isn’t until May 6, 2014, but why wait until May to show your appreciation for a teacher? Why not give your secret pal teacher friend a card that tells you he’s/she’s awesome right at the very beginning of the year?

Here’s a card I designed for that very purpose. Just set a chunk of chocolate on top or tape it to a scented candle. The images on this card are my own creation:

Just like last month, I like to give credit to anyone whose great ideas I use on this website; however, this image comes from Whimsical Inklings, and there must be a glitch on that website, because I wasn’t able to contact the site’s author. Still, I’m giving credit right here!

If you use my ideas (even when they’re borrowed), I’d also appreciate it if you’d give me credit and/or like my pages on FB. Thanks!

Just as with last month’s post, I ran across this clever gift-giving idea on Pineterest, so I thought I’d share. Valentine’s Day gifts for the secret pal need to be clever but not-so-romantic. Here’s just the “tool” for you.

A person could choose teacher-y stuff to put in the cellophane instead, of course: erasers, pencils, Oriental Trade prizes, colorful paper clips, or sticky notes. I’m assuming you just make these gifts with the following:

Place the shovel over the top of the cellophane with its scoop in the center.

Fill the scoop with the gift of choice (candy or prizes).

Gather the cellophane around the handle and tie it off with curling ribbon.

Glue or tape the label to the front.

I’ve included a Valentine’s Day label that you can easily download and print right here. (See link above.) On that document, I made two possible labels, so you can choose which one suits your secret pal best.

Happy Valentine’s Day! And remember, please show your appreciation for my freebies by “liking” this page, sharing it with others, and/or posting links from your blog to mine. Thanks!